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As stated in her introduction to Inferno, Ellen Datlow asked her favorite authors for stories that would "provide the reader with a frisson of shock, or a moment of dread so powerful it might cause the reader outright physical discomfort; or a sensation of fear so palpable that the reader feels compelled to turn on the bright lights and play music or seek the company of others to dispel the fear."

Mission accomplished. Datlow has produced a collection filled with some of the most powerful voices in the field: Pat Cadigan, Terry Dowling, Jeffrey Ford, Christopher Fowler, Glen Hirshberg, K. W. Jeter, Joyce Carol Oates, and Lucius Shepard, to name a few. Each author approaches fear in a different way, but all of the stories' characters toil within their own hell. An aptly titled anthology, Inferno will scare the pants off readers and further secure Ellen Datlow's standing as a preeminent editor of modern horror.

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Review

"Datlow makes a solid claim to being the premiere horror editor of her generation." --Publishers Weekly (starred review) on Inferno

“One good ghost story, one truly effective tale, is usually sufficient to scare the bejesus out of a person. The Dark contains sixteen tales, enough to keep fans tossing and turning and peeking under the bed for a fortnight and then some. Watch your hackles when you read this book; Ms. Datlow and her horrormongers are out to raise them.” --Dallas Morning News

“Sure to provide a yardstick by which future ghost fiction will be measured.” --Publishers Weekly (starred review) on The Dark

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

Anthologies like this are about the only place to find horror short stories these days, which is unfortunate because I think scary short stories are pretty awesome. The perfect length to read before turning off the light at night. And reading one right before bed is like dropping a little bit of mental lsd into your dreams.

Ellen Datlow has been doing the horror thing for a couple of decades now. She's edited over 50 anthologies and won a ton of awards for doing so. The point is, if you are gonna pick somebody to take you by the hand and show you what's good in horror short fiction these days, she's the one you wanna pick.

This anthology doesn't have a theme. It's 20 stories that Datlow chose "to showcase the range of subjects imagined by a number of my favorite writers inside and outside the horror field". When I looked through the contents I saw only half a dozen or so authors whose names were familiar to me.

I particularly like "Bethany's Wood" by Paul Finch, "Stilled Life" by Pat Cadigan, and "An Apiary of White Bees" by Lee Thomas. Oh, that stories like these have made it into YBFH 2008. I read the Datlow-chosen stories in YBFH 2007 right after reading Inferno and was disappointed; the story by Oates, in particular, seemed misplaced: I'm a fan of the bizarre, and this one seemed pointlessly grotesque instead. But Inferno is everything I look for in modern horror! I think it's Ellen's best book so far.

I had been an admirer of ghost stories and the "quiet horror" (although I never used to know it under that name) ever since I started reading fiction. Violence, especially if that is described to be taking place in the commonest possible circumstances (e.g. within the four walls of a drab room occupied by a family not that different from mine), or which involves loss & pain to people who can be actually felt for in everyday life (e.g. someone's children or wife getting lost or murdered or tortured) is not preferred by me while trying to acquire that pleasing chill by going through printed words. Perhaps that is not a very literate thing to do, esp. since I have been reading horror for many-many years now. But this collection, often dealing with exactly those issues which I detest, succeeded in moving me and compelling me to read every one of them, often against my own wishes. After reading these stories, I was forced to conclude that the editor has been supremely successful in her objective: giving the readers an idea about how it really might feel while burning in the fires of own hell. I had gone through it during the reading!

The contents are:

1) Riding Bitch by K.W. Jeter2) Misadventure by Stephen Gallagher3) The Forest by Laird Barron4) The Monsters of Heaven by Nathan Ballingrud5) Inelastic Collisions by Elizabeth Bear6) The Uninvited by Christopher Fowler7) 13 o'clock by Mike O'Driscoll8) Lives by John Grant9) Ghorla by Mark Samuels10) Face by Joyce Carol Oates12) An Apiary of White Bees by Lee Thomas13) The Keeper by P.D.Read more ›

I've read all 3 of Datlow's Best Horror anthologies, and many of the earlier Year's Best Horror and Fantasy. Each of these was better than this. None of these stories was more than mildly interesting, certain none made me "leave the light on after dark" or "check under the bed" for creepers. If you want subtle, literate slow-moving stories, these may be for you, but nothing here was really intense, exciting or unusual.

This lady is my favorite dark fiction anthologist. I have almost all of them and this one is also very good. As she states in the introduction there are no zombies, vampires or horror war stories in thi collection. Just good terror,and psychological,supernatural monsters in these pages. Three of my favorites are by Ballingrud, Barron and Hirshberg. There was not a tale here that I did not like. I highly recommend this book.